Portrait of Téa

She was one of the most ferocious women I’d ever seen. That her ferocity was inspired by injustice, people’s hatred of others, racism, sexism, and (let us not beat around the bush) criminal politicians just went to say how current and overgrown issues needed a cyber ambassador. They required someone to fight the corner and spread the news as the press seldom did in a non-diluted or unbiased way. She was extraordinary. This woman did not lean to favour anyone for her own gain, she saw social injustice and addressed it, albeit in her rather unique and scathing, cynical, venomous tone.

She was scathing, taking her axe like tongue to every political wrong and its perpetrators (possessors of immobile ideas and beliefs, crippling the people) with remarkable vitriol. If it was violence, it was to improve, to protect. It was self-defence for and of life. She couldn’t remain silent if paid to do so and her videos demonstrated that. Her moral compass was intact, whether people subsequently called her a whore or not.

She was also rather fetching and had swarms of cyber lunatics (maybe ones made of flesh and bones, you know, real, tangible stalkers, too) as well as, I do not doubt, legitimate and more gentlemanly admirers getting in line to take a closer look. She was an online female political Morrissey – she caused a reaction, and a wide range of them at that. Her following was large, a voice folk could relate to, one of the masses, one not fashioned by wealth and self-aggrandisement. At times, I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She was one of a kind. Who could really say that?

The fact that she was, through my artist’s eyes, and in my relative way of seeing things, better looking than many girlfriends, spouses and partners meant she received a great deal of threats and verbal carnage online from creatures and savages who were intimidated by her strength, beauty, and intelligence. It was a problem from the off. That she had a mind of her own, and spoke it, frightened people to their cores. That she communicated her sentiments so vehemently, in what can only truly be described as a confrontational manner, meant they were literally quaking in their boots, attacking back as their only form of defence, of self-protection. She wasn’t even after many of them, just things they believed in perhaps. If, as they say, you cannot take the heat, get out of the kitchen – here, the realm of the internet. They were panicked by her fortitude, her guile, her directness. She was a modern woman. Not one to be feared but admired for her singular approach. I could see how it might be intimidating, but here was a woman that warranted some positive energy, some love, some kindness, even if she was not your jam.

Her blonde hair flowed down in waves, enticing, elegant, in contrast to her X-rated vocabulary. She was real, even in her 3D Twitter dimension. She came out of the device upon which I watched her, larger than life, daring, dangerous, delectable. The internet was all bite or be bitten, but I was trying to look past the confrontation at the heart of her message and its cause. It wasn’t to fill boredom; it was that the government had let them – millions of beings – down. Underline that, motherfuckers!

She was steely, sometimes in the face of brutal online assaults (even needing to vanish occasionally to recover from the attack she was under), and her blatant use of the F-word, one of her weapons, as well as its even rougher sibling the C-word (sometimes), made it hard to digest some of her content, for she made videos and tweeted throughout the day. Maybe her language rubbed people up the wrong way, instigating more extreme reactions. But she was also onto something. She was getting her message across as she knew how. She was a pied piper with over a hundred thousand followers. People listened because she, unlike the politicians that led us toward the abyss, cared.

You could not conform to people’s – nay, society’s – expected standards, unless you were weak (are you brainwashed?). She was incapable of backing down. You had to admire it. She was driven by justice and expressing her disdain for and highlighting the endless stream of poor decisions by the current UK government. It meant something to not let it pass on by. Her videos were a tough watch, yet somehow essential, inescapable, works of lethal love. She was diminutive but utterly explosive.

How did she walk down the street, what mood was she in when she woke up in the morning, what sounds did she make as she ate? I had more questions than answers, which meant my work was never done.

Her green marble whirlpool eyes glistened as if tears were never far despite her steeliness, her resolute determination in the face of modern virtual madness, her axe-like language, and even physical gestures. Her middle finger never far from being extended. She was cartoon-esque, thrilling, inspirational. She was a glorious handful on a quest for justice, and little else mattered.

I was fascinated, wondered what the atmosphere would be like if she were sat down in front of me, we had a beer – or other alcoholic beverage – to bring us together, and a dialogue that I knew for sure I could far from predict. She was a live wire, crackling with electricity, a dazzling dragon, and anything, anything at all could happen.

She was getting better with age. She possessed a radiance, a humanity that earlier photos of her in life had shown to be lacking (then she was tunnelling; now she was revealed, in the great outdoors, alert, aware of the hunt). She was worldly, knowing more, even too much, about how the world worked, its pros and cons, the place she wanted to take in it, and she fit it more than she ever had. The past, shaping us, evolving us, giving us riches and ruin. It was all there in her, a possessor of truth and treasure. She wanted to be proud of her homeland, but they had made it too difficult, and I was unable to do anything but agree on this. I lived abroad and Brexit had done nothing to make me feel closer at hand. Britain, ever the island, was pushed ever further out to sea, lost, isolated, cutting its nose off. It was meandering, drifting, aimless in its course. She knew all of this, knew how it could be corrected, but women and men in high places do not see such issues of the ants, the mere pests (they claim to serve) they abandon on topic after topic as they, on their thrones atop their sky-scraping ivory towers watch us mere mortals far down below. We knew, though. We had the key. We knew what they were up to. They were watching us nowadays, in an Orwellian nightmare becoming ever more our dystopian reality. There was no waking from this. And they were watching us. Téa and I knew. Millions of others knew. Others were waking up to it, too. Only, now, we were watching back. Téa’s voice was ringing loud and clear, an ambassador for the oblivious. If they were coming for us, we were coming for them, too.   

Connected to this literary portrait is the artwork with number DJS00004 above.

Both works by Dominic J Stevenson (for more details contact me on dominicjstevenson@yahoo.co.uk)